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The tendency of some writers to just throw in a samurai for the heck of it, even in modern urban Japan or a western world without a Japanese Counterpart Culture. And also the fact that people tend to dig the samurai. Who doesn't dig Sanger?

Mr. Bushido in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 — who is actually American (although both America and Japan are technically part of the same country in 00's superbloc-dominated future). Additional to it, a samurai mobile suit. 3, in fact.

The Halo Legends short The Duel shows the Elites wearing samurai clothes when not in combat, and The Dragon is even dressed in full samurai-esque armor (he's also the only Elite to use a metal sword instead of an energy one). Despite the artistic license, Elite culture does canonically have similarities to that of feudal Japan.

Signum from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's and onward obstinately calls herself a "knight", whereas her warrior code (not to mention her fighting style) is obviously based off the samurai. But then again, most Japanese writers confuse the two at least somewhat.

In Naruto, the Land of Iron has samurai, instead of the ninja in Hidden Villages most other nations rely on. For added goodness, in relation to trope picture, the regular samurai of the Land of Iron wear armor similar to the Stormtroopers.

Oshawott/Mijumaru and Dewott/Futachimaru, who have both appeared in the anime as of the latest episode in Japan, have their origins in samurai. (More blatant in Dewott than in Oshawott, though) Ash even gets an Oshawott of his own. Fans are hoping it will finally avert the trend of water-type starters Ash owns never evolving.

Even the final evolution to this line, Samurott/Daikenki, is based off a samurai, though they have the capacity to dual wield the seamitars, and spend most of their time as quadrupedal Pokemon.

Lupin III creator Monkey Punch wanted a more Japanese character for his ensemble. Enter Goemon Ishikawa XIII...

Digimon has several notable examples, including the most well-known one, Musyamon/Mushamon. Other examples include Yashamon, one of V-mon's armor evolutions, Zanbamon, a Ultimate/Mega level digimon whose lower body is a war horse, Tactimon from Digimon Xros Wars, and Gaioumon, who is a samurai Greymon.

In the One Piece world, "samurai" is the name given to warriors from Wa-no-Kuni (a Fantasy Counterpart Culture island to feudal Japan). The first one to appear is Ryuma, and later "Foxfire" Kin'emon and "Evening Shower" Kanjuro.

The French series Chroniques de la Lune Noire (Black Moon Chronicles) has the character of Murata, a samurai in an otherwise western fantasy setting. Since it is based on an old D&D campaign, you can blame the Oriental Adventures on this.

The Tick comics have Paul the Samurai, despite all the other heroes being over the top cape and cowl style. His primary role is to be there to recommend that he and anybody associated with him commits seppuku at the slightest failure.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: While the Shredder is actually a ninja, his shiny armor is samurai-inspired. His conflict with the turtles thus provides a visual analogue to the (alleged) viciousness between samurai and ninjas. (In reality, more samurai hired ninja than they cared to admit.)

Hondo City Judges in Judge Dredd are deliberately modelled on samurai; their equivalent of the Chief Judge is even referred to as the Shogun.

Teen Titans introduced Bushido, a young warrior with... well, powers of the samurai, apparently. He was among the fatalities in Infinite Crisis.

Batman's original Outsiders team had fairly standard-issue superheroes... and Katana, a steely-eyed female samurai.

The Transformers G1 has Bludgeon, a Decepticon whose Pretender shell (in Marvel's run) and actual body (in IDW's) is modeled to look like samurai armor with a kabuto helmet and skull-like face. He's always depicted as fighting with a giant katana using the Cybertronian martial art Metallikato even though his action figure came with a gun. Also prone to calling his opponent "Fool!"

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Films — Animation

In Epic the Leafmen's armor seems to draw a lot of inspiration from the samurai. Referenced with Ronin's name. His helmet is also an obvious tribute to Date Masamune.

Gisaku is an animated film set nearly entirely in Spain and constantly tells the viewers how awesome Spain is. And yet it has a samurai as protagonist.

Bandai took it one step further and released the Tamashii Nations Movie Realization figure line, in which Darth Vader was converted into a literal samurai. There're also Ashigaru Stormtroopers and Ronin Boba Fett.

Samurai Purinsesu: Gedō-hime. She's actually more of a Ninja, but still takes the name of Samurai.

Gareth Edwards: He's an ancient warrior who's the last of his kind, and his kind has long since died out. He lives a very solitary lonely existence and he's very happy to keep away from everyone, but we keep doing things to force him to return and put things right.

Literature

Though Neal Stephenson's series The Baroque Cycle takes place mostly in 17th century Europe, it features Gabriel Goto, a Japanese Jesuit who just happens to be deadly with a katana. In all fairness, the series features characters from just about everywhere and most of them are badasses.

James Bond encounters Ernst Stavro Blofeld, calling himself "Dr. Guntram Shatterhand", for the final time in You Only Live Twice, who wears samurai armour in his "Garden of Death" to avoid getting pricked by a poisonous thorns or fall victim to similar fates as its suicidal visitors.

The Dresden Files novel Death Masks gives us Shiro Yoshimo, the Japanese Knight of the Cross — perhaps not formally a samurai (it's never elaborated on), but certainly living up to the trope in being both a highly honorable person and an artist with the blade.

A particularly ironic example, Hamburgler from Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland and Barbarian Beast Bitches Of The Badlands was McDonaldland's most deadly warrior, wielding a katana and an admiration for the samurai's method of killing, even making a sword from aluminum and killing someone with it in his youth. Later in life, he becomes the psychopathic leader of McDonaldland's Gestapo-like police force the Fry Guys. He eventually had plastic surgery done on him to look like the Hamburgler (the "Devil"-figure in McDonaldland's national religion) to inflict fear in the public.

Victoria's setting features a mild Days of Future Past tendency, and since Japan has also embraced its own variant of retrofuturism, the samurai ethos and ideal is strong with the Japanese officers encountered by the protagonists. Like typical Corporate Samurai, they make use of modern technology and even clothing, but also of (ceremonial) katana swords and bushido.

Highlander has the episode "The Samurai", where Duncan is shown to have been secretly mentored by a samurai during Japan's isolationist period. When it was discovered, the samurai committed ritual suicide and gave Duncan his sword.

Westworld: The season 1 finale has several characters break into a wing of the Westworld park's backstage with samurai armor and weapons displayed and two samurai hosts dueling with katana. The "SW" logo on the walls teases that there is a Samurai World section of the park.

Music

Bare Naked Ladies. In their song "One Week", mention is made to this mentality. "Kay I don't make films, but if I did, they'd have a samurai."

Verdena's third album "Il Suicidio Dei Samurai" ("The Suicide Of The Samurai") and its final song.

Smile.dk seems to love this trope. Firstly used in the debut single "Butterfly", it was later referencedin songs like "Doki Doki", "A Geisha's Dream", "Doo-Be-Di-Boy".

The music video to "Sonne" by Farin Urlaub. The lyrics just imply he lost his girlfriend (with no reference to Japan at all), the video interprets it as she has been murdered by the samurai competition and he's out for vengeance. And it's awesome.note Urlaub is a known Japan enthusiast.

Drum & bugle corps example: The Cavaliers' 2008 "Samurai" show.

Professional Wrestling

Perhaps thinking too literally, but many Japanese wrestling feds rely on Samurai! TV to showcase their product. So, in essence, many things are better with samurai.

Legendary in England (or at least to those who care about pro wrestling 1960s\70s England), The Masked Samurai, Kendo Nagasaki! He's also known up in the Canadian Stampede promotion and the Japanese RJPW. He wore full kendo gear in addition to his completely concealing mask and even had a (blunt) sword!

NJPW trainee Osamu Matsuda took up the helmet and gimmick of "El Samurai" in 1991 while wrestling in Universal Wrestling Association (well, Lucha Libre Internacional, which was functionally the same thing). He'd later take the gimmick back to his native Japan and start the Samurai Gym with Ryusuke Taguchi, Tetsuya Naito and Yujiro.

Dirty White Boy's nemesis and the 1994 SMW television champion, Kendo The Samurai.

Wonder Ring Stardom wrestler Act Yasukawa has a modern day samurai gimmick based on the fact her previous sport was kendo.

Debuting in 2012 for the German Wrestling Federation and later, the Mad Wrestling Association in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein was Zero Samurai, before he took up the Franz Engel gimmick later.

A masked luchador known as Dragón Samurai popped up around Celaya, Guanajuato Mexico in 2014. His age and skill suggests he's been at it for quite awhile though...

Tabletop Games

Mutant Chronicles, the Mishima Mega-Corp is a Feudal Japan in Mercury, they have Samurai units who strictly follow the Bushido code to the letter.

BattleTech features samurai themed battlemechs in the Draconis Combine, and they come with mech sized katanas. The Combine's warriors are themselves called samurai and expected to behave as such: they attempt to fight in single combat whenever possible, carry swords, and if they screw up badly on the battlefield they're even expected to commit seppuku.

Bandai released the Tamashii Nations Movie Realization figure line, which portrays movie characters in a feudal Japan aesthetic. It begins with Star Wars characters such as Boba Fett, Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers. Later on, the line extended to comic book characters such as Spider Man.

Kai in Luminous Arc. This is strange since the entire world is western, and he fights in a unit full of more convectional medieval soldiers. To increase his relationship values you have to answer his questions with stuff that corresponds to the Bushido. Mel, the Torrent Witch, is a big fan of samurai... to say the least.

Final Fantasy X mostly has a Pacific island feel for its characters, with a Goth and a tribal beastman thrown in. Then there's Auron, who's a walking gallery of ronin imagery to go along with all those badass tropes. And don't forget Yojimbo.

In Mega Man X6, the player has the option of assembling the Blade Armor which resembles a suit of Samurai armor, complete with Z-saber.

The Wizardry games included samurai and ninja both as enemies and available character classes. Both were considered "elite" classes with high requirements for changing to, and both were flat-out superior to plain old fighters. Interestingly, Wizardry was also far more popular in Japan than similar game series.

In the 1st Era, the Tsaesci of Akavir attempted to invade Tamriel but were defeated by the forces of Reman Cyrodiil. The Tsaesci have significant Japanese influences, including the use of katanas and Samurai style armor. The surviving Tsaesci from the failed invasion were incorporated into Reman Cyrodiil's fledgling Second Tamriellic Empire and brought these influences into Tamriellic (especially Imperial) culture.

The Blades, descended from the Akaviri Dragonguard, serve the Emperors of Tamriel as both a Praetorian Guard and as Secret Police. Uniformed Blades wear armor that is a mix of Roman lorica segmentata and Japanese-style lamellar. Their helmets are a cross between a Japanese kabuto and a Roman galea (legionnaire helmet). Their favored weapons are katanas, though in Western style, they are used in conjunction with shields. The Blades are essentially a Culture Chop Suey mix of Samurai and Roman Legionnaires. This style is most evident in Oblivion.

Morrowind's Orcish armor is heavily stylized Samurai armor. This is an oddball in the series, as other games style Orcish armor quite differently.

Youmu sports a pair of katanas despite Touhou Project being mostly a Bullet Hell genre. She projects a following of the Bushido code, essentially being Yuyuko's samurai, though officially her family serve Yuyuko as gardeners. Must be mentioned that her swordsmanship is highly capable of spewing bullets and slowing time.

The Kirby games' "Quick Draw" minigame have the characters dressed as samurai. (Though earlier English translations replaced samurai with cowboys, turning a Single-Stroke Battle into a wild west shootout.)

In Pokémon, the starter Oshawott's entire evolutionary line is based around samurai—Oshawott is either a wannabe samurai or an inexperienced apprentice, Dewott is either a ronin, an apprentice, or a normal samurai, and Samurott not only has samurai in its name, but it is likely based on a daimyo, or samurai warlord. The best part? THEY USE THEIR SHELLS AS SWORDS.

The old and mostly forgotten First Samurai bilogy of platform games. The title is also a pun on The Last Ninja series of games.

Every installment of the Rhythm Heaven series so far has had at least one minigame featuring a character known as the Wandering Samurai, whose levels involve defending a village from tengu, attacking demons that appear from a portal, and slicing watermelons.

He also makes a guest appearance in one of the Gamer Microgames in Game & Wario, where he apparently found work at a fish processing factory.

Sega's arcade Fighting GameBurning Rival has a samurai fighter, Ghost Shingen, whose helmet and armor are possessed by the soul of an ancient samurai named Shingen Yagyu.

True Crime: New York City: Lionel "Benjamin" Jones of the President's Club has adopted some Japanese culture from his gang working with the Yakuza before things started to go sour. He fights Marcus with a sharp katana and samurai armor in his Zen garden on the roof of his headquarters.

Sodom from the Street Fighter and Final Fight franchises is an American Japanophile obsessed with Japanese culture and philosophies and thus considers himself a native from that country. He could also count partially as a McNinja, since he uses both ninja and samurai aesthetics in an effort to come across as Japanese.

Empire Earth has a truly bizarre example in the expansion's Asian campaign, or more accurately the United Federation of Asian Republics, basically China and neighboring mainland countries. A few decades later, their leader Hu Kwan Do wears basically future-samurai armor with Laser Blades (that shoot laser beams)... yet Japan is still a separate country.

Empire Earth II's Samurai are unique to the Japanese civilization, but are only available in the first 5 epochs. Meaning you can see barely-dressed cavemen who've yet to master anything more sophisticated than rocks tied to sticks accompanied by fully armored warriors with katanas.

Team Fortress 2 has a katana as an alternative melee weapon to the Soldier's shovel and Demoman's bottle alongside Samuraï armor and masks as cosmetic items.

Fate/stay night has a samurai for the Assassin class. And no, it doesn't suit him in the slightest. He does no sneak attacks, no dirty fighting, doesn't go for Masters like he is supposed to when he has the chance, and finally he is the only Japanese hero amongst all the Servants. The rest of them? Greeks, Celts and English make up over half the Servants and he is an Arab. He wasn't even supposed to be here at all. Also, he's a better swordsman than Saber and even Lancer doesn't want to fight him.

Web Animation

At one point in Issue #10 of Teen Girl Squad, a tiny samurai jumps out of a pile of corn during their school cafeteria's "Corn and Corn Alone Day," proclaiming that "Corn is no place for a mighty warrior." Don't ask.

He later jumps out of a bowl of corn chips at The Ugly One's birthday party and "lathes" a rotating What's-Her-Face with a Naginata. Again, don't ask.

Naturally enough, when an episode of Gargoyles was set in (modern day) Japan, what code would the gargoyle clan found protecting a village there follow but bushido?

ThunderCats (1985) has Hachiman, a samurai Mumra brought to Third Earth to defeat Lion-O, but who would become an occasional ally of the Thundercats.

Samurai Jack deconstructs this with Da Samurai; a Jive Turkey guy in disco pants that is more or less a thug with a katana, which he uses more like a club than an actual sword, who uses his self-proclaimed status as a "samurai" to bully people and (fail to) pick up ladies. The show's actual Samurai humbles him by the end of the episode, by kicking his ass without breaking a sweat while also teaching him a bit about the real values of a samurai.

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